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There are so many different types of spirituality floating around that you might wonder, “Who comes up with all this stuff?”
After all, is not all spirituality directed at the same common goal – to wake humanity up?
Though many would probably debate me on that.
When you get interested in discovering what the hell is actually going on here, you’ll inevitably stumble onto the spiritual playground.
You may have jumped into meditation, yoga, prayer, chanting, inner work, burning incense, channeling ancestors, and many other rides available.
Most of us get lost on this spiritual journey, contrary to losing ourselves.
See what I did there?
It’s easy to forget where we’re going and why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Still, we want to explore even more types of spirituality in this amusement park of metaphysical delights.
Which is cool.
But before you keep going with your exploration, you might want to ask yourself one important question:
Where am I going with all this?
The answer to this question will determine what type of spirituality you would want to pursue.
To help you with the answer, there are basically only two answers.
Either
you want to wake up.
Or
everything else.
Now that you know your answer you can look through the types of spirituality available. But again, essentially, there are only two options:
1. Spirituality that keeps you asleep
2. Spirituality that wakes you up
Spirituality That Keeps You Asleep
“If you think you’re free, there’s no escape possible.” – Ram Dass
To find spirituality that keeps you asleep you don’t need to search for long because that’s 99% spirituality.
But before this takes on a judgmental air, I want to clarify something. The types of spirituality that keep you asleep are not bad, invalid, or useless.
They’re part of the amusement park and each one is an interesting ride that can enable you to have amazing experiences.
Some might even positively influence your life.
Now that we got this out of the way, how do you detect spirituality that keeps you asleep?
Simple.
Every kind of spirituality that involves beliefs, ideologies, the expectation to surrender your sovereignty to an authority like a guru, and practices that keep the ego-mind-body firmly in place is spirituality that keeps you asleep.
Now you can see why most spirituality falls into this category. The moment you stop thinking for yourself, you have taken the ride.
Makes me nostalgic saying that because oh boy have I taken rides, a whole bunch of them.
Anyway, only because you’re interested in all the fun spiritual rides doesn’t mean you can’t go for the waking up part. You just need to be aware that they won’t help you with the task of shaking you awake.
But here is the twist.
Many spiritual practices will make you think you’re awake. More on this later.
This is not to say, however, that there aren’t keys in the spiritual teachings.
Sometimes you’ll read something from certain teaching which will provide you with exactly the information you need to take the next step to wake up.
You’ll then be tempted to linger around the spiritual teaching where you have found to key.
That’s ok but it’s also a trap.
After you have used the key and opened the door, discard the key and move on.
Spirituality That Wakes You Up
“What you’re looking for is what is looking.” – Wei Wu Wei
Spirituality that wakes you up is equally as simply defined as the other type.
Types of spirituality that wake you up, are really only one type. The type where you question everything you have ever been taught, every belief, idea, knowledge, concept, and so on.
Basically, you sit down and ask yourself what is true until you know.
One way to do this is through self-enquiry. You ask yourself “Who am I?” and follow your sense of beingness until your true nature is self-evident.
The spirituality that wakes you up is found outside the amusement park, on the infinite parking lot. You might meet a shady person welcoming you with a smile, pointing you in the right direction but that’s about it.
It’s not as much fun as the other types of spirituality.
After you have stumbled upon the parking lot, the next step is to strip naked to the bones and see that the person you call yourself never existed and was an illusion kept alive by the mind.
This can be painful because you’ll have to scrape away all the cherished beliefs you hold dear. And some of them might stick to you like super glue.
However, it’s also liberating.
Each belief you discard is less weight you need to carry around. It takes effort to pretend like you’re someone you’re not, especially if you don’t know you’re pretending.
But as soon as you know you’re pretending, you’ll no longer stand the self-delusion and hastily move towards the truth.
You might have already noticed something about the spirituality that wakes you up.
To wake up, you don’t actually need any spirituality at all. You only need pure intention and desire to see clearly.
When this is in place, you have taken the first step and then the waking up part is assured. It’s like an avalanche, it won’t stop until it reaches its destination – Truth.
Which One Should You Choose?
After everything you have read so far, this sounds almost like an ironic question. But it’s not.
The thing you need to know is that one is not better or worse than the other. There is no right or wrong here.
The spirituality that wakes you up is quite disruptive. And there is no need to rush things, all roads lead to Babylon or whatever.
After all, the point of an amusement park is taking all the rides, not vegetating on the parking lot. Sooner or later, we’ll have to leave the amusement park anyway.
Just follow your intuition on this one.
If there is a spiritual practice you feel called to, go for it. Know that you can engage in all types of spirituality without projecting an excessive amount of importance onto them.
A ride is a ride. Take it, enjoy it, but when you’ve had enough don’t forget to step off it.
Many spiritual practices can give you a sense of being awake. You’re aware that you’re in an amusement park, but you’re still in it.
Let’s mutilate Plato’s cave allegory to make this even clearer.
Most of us are sitting in the cave and staring at the dancing shadows on the wall believing this is reality.
Now, when we start dabbling in spirituality and have some mystical experiences, we might realize that the shadows on the wall are not the real thing. So we start looking around the cave and can see the fire that is the light source enabling the shadows.
We think we have woken up and to some degree we have. However, we’re still in the cave.
This is where many seekers get stuck.
They start to worship the fire as the ultimate light and teach others about it. They think they have reached the end, not knowing that the sun is outside the cave illuminating the whole mountain.
Eventually, we’ll get to a point where our desire for Truth is so strong we won’t be able to stand the cave any longer. Nothing will be more important than getting out into the sun.
Then we have taken the first step towards waking up for real.
But until then, don’t take this all so seriously and enjoy the ride(s).
△△△
“I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water.”
– Eugene Ionesco
Luka
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